PlayStation 4 game sales nearly doubled in the quarter
Sony sold 91 million PlayStation 4 games in the second quarter of this year. That’s an 83 percent increase over the same quarter last year. The large growth was probably caused by, among other things, the corona pandemic.
PlayStation gamers have bought many games from the PlayStation Store in the past three months, according to the quarterly figures from Sony. According to the company, 74 percent of software sales were digital purchases. Sony’s own PS4 games in particular sold well; the console maker sold 18.5 million games made by its own studios in the quarter.
Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us: Part II was the main contributor. In the three days after its release, that title had already sold 4 million copies. That made it the fastest-selling PS4 exclusive to date. Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima also sold millions of copies in a few days. After three three days, the counter was at 2.4 million.
A year ago, Sony sold 49.8 million PS4 games in the comparable quarter, including 11.7 million copies from its own studios. The strong growth is probably due to the corona pandemic, which means that people spend a lot of time at home and play more games. A research agency previously calculated that there is a significant growth in the sales of games in the United States. The number of sales for the games industry is expected to increase sharply throughout 2020.
Sony sold 1.9 million PlayStation 4 consoles in the quarter. This brings the total number of PS4s sold to 112.1 million copies. Sony now has 44.9 million PlayStation Plus subscribers. That is a significant growth compared to a year ago; then there were 36.2 million. For the first time, Sony provides figures on the number of monthly active users on the PlayStation Network. That was 113 million at the end of the past quarter.
High sales increased Sony’s Game & Network Services business by over 32 percent to JPY 606.1 billion. Converted about 4.9 billion euros. Many other departments of Sony have had a hard time in recent months. Less electronics were sold and the music and film industry has largely come to a standstill. Sony’s quarterly turnover nevertheless amounted to 1968.9 billion Japanese yen, about 15.8 billion euros and an increase of 2 percent compared to last year. The operating profit amounted to 1.83 billion euros, 1 percent less than last year.